@eseelke The what I would recommend is that you create a generic “windows 7” image and then inject the proper drivers during imaging. You don’t want/need the fog client since you won’t be connecting the built computers to AD/renaming them or any of that.

The hardest part will be collecting all of the drivers for each random hardware model. These drivers need to be in INF format and not the drivers that use the automated .exe installers. For Win7 to detect the drivers in C:\Drivers the files need to be in that directory in INF format and for you to update the registry key either through the deployment process or before image capture to have windows look in that folder first for drivers and then in the c:\windows\inf folder.

I like this gives us a clean install of FOG on the client and since FOG takes care of joining the workstation to AD I don’t have to worry about including that process in the sysprep process itself. Same for printers, FOG takes care of that automatically as well.

I think it would be easy enough to have fog uninstall itself if you didn’t want to leave it on the PCs after its initial work is done.

To automate the wsus stuff, you’ll need the fog client. But running a small I.T. shop, I would imagine that the FOG Client is not something you would want to keep installed on the systems you fix for folks. I’ve never tried it but it might be possible to also craft a snapin that uninstalls the FOG Client.

Pro tip: Put letters or numbers at the front of your snapin names to control what order they execute in.

For the snappy driver stuff, just include this in your image. Put it inside of c:\drivers and windows should use it.

I’d imagine that if you have no idea what sort of model is going to come through the door for you to fix, it’ll be difficult to automate the drivers stuff. I figure you’ll want to clean up the snappy drivers from the freshly imaged system to clear up space for the end-user.

I would be interested in what @george1421 would have to say about the drivers.

What OS are you deploying and do you plan on installing the FOG client on every reference image? There are different ways to go about this depending on your end goal.

Since you are a “small IT shop” does this mean you are a computer repair shop or an IT group inside your company. The approach will be different based on if you will see these imaged computers on a daily basis.